Heads Up takes pleasure in presenting to its readers the maiden effort at this post
of Private Dunning. He has considerable previous experience in this line in both
civilian and army life. His work will appear regularly each day.

Heads Up, vol. II, no. 4, 4 January 1919

During World War I, military camps, regiments, ships, and military hospitals often printed their own newspapers for military personnel stationed there, keeping them informed on both internal and external news. Heads Up (film 1670) served as the newspaper for Debarkation Hospital 52 located on the Richmond College (now University of Richmond) campus in Richmond, Virginia, and provided news about the hospital, the Richmond area, and the end of the war. One of the regular features of Heads Up was the cartoons of M. A. Dunning. Twenty-three of Dunning’s original drawings are located in the Margaret Ethel Kelley Kern papers (LVA acc. 23481).

By the time his work began appearing in Heads Up, M. A. (Marshall Alston) Dunning already had a successful career in cartooning. Born 28 July 1894 in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, Dunning … read more »

My name is Chloe Staples, and I am from Richmond, Virginia. I am a rising senior at Lynchburg College with a major in United States history and a minor in Spanish. This summer, I am interning at the Library of Virginia (LVA) in the Information Security & Technology Services department.

My first month at the LVA has been so great. I have learned new skills that will help me down the road, worked with incredible people, and done work of which I can be proud. As one of my first assignments, I went through boxes of World War I-era documents from soldiers born in Virginia to determine which ones would be interesting for the public on Transcribe. The first few boxes were mostly boring—I read about a guy’s car sale for about ten letters! Things started to get more interesting as I went through the war correspondence files in the Executive Papers of Governor Westmoreland Davis, 1911-1922. The most interesting cache was definitely the letters from David J. Castleman—a Greensboro, Alabama native– fighting in the war abroad. His letters are some of the sweetest things I have had the pleasure to read in my, admittedly short, 21 years of life. It is both fascinating and moving to learn about someone through their letters and sort of put yourself in their position.

This is the latest entry in a series of blog posts spotlighting stories and records of Virginia’s involvement in World War I.

In 1915, as the guns thundered in Europe, America found itself at a crossroads. A small but vocal group, including Teddy Roosevelt and General Leonard Wood, called for preparedness– the immediate build-up of naval and land forces to make the nation ready for war. President Wilson and the Democrats, more inclined toward localism and the state-based National Guard, found these notions suspicious and did little to grow the existing military. Consequently, prior to the National Defense Act (June 1916), the U. S. Army consisted of about 100,000 men. Even combined with 100,000 National Guardsmen, it fell well short of the Imperial German Army by a factor of 20.

When United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, there immediately arose a critical need for able-bodied men to fight. Congress had created the Council of National Defense nearly a year earlier to coordinate all national resources relevant to efficient mobilization and maintenance of the armed forces. Each state created its own Council of Defense to carry out the directives of the national body. After a disorganized start in April 1917 by Governor Henry Stuart, Governor Westmoreland Davis established the Commonwealth’s Second Virginia Council of Defense (SVCD) in February 1918.

This is the latest entry in a series of blog posts spotlighting stories and records of Virginia’s involvement in World War I.

Soon after the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the War Department acquired land between Petersburg and Hopewell to construct a new military cantonment. The camp, named for Confederate general Robert E. Lee, was soon designated as a division training center. Construction began on Camp Lee in June 1917, and by September the facility had more than 1,500 buildings and was ready to begin receiving members of the 80th Division for training. At its peak, the camp was the third-largest population center in Virginia behind Richmond and Norfolk, with some 60,000 doughboys passing through its training facilities on their way “Over There.”

The camp hosted a number of Army organizations, including an auxiliary remount depot, an office of the judge advocate, an infantry officers’ training school, a base hospital and later a convalescent center. As the area worked to accommodate the needs of this sudden influx of young men, a number of social organizations also had a presence on the camp, including the YMCA, Jewish Welfare Board, and Knights of Columbus. The American Libraries Association, which had established a Library War Service headquartered at the Library of Congress, created a camp library with the assistance of Dr. Henry McIlwaine … read more »

This is the latest entry in a series of blog posts spotlighting stories and records of Virginia’s involvement in World War I. Corporal Harry A. Matthews, the subject of this week’s post, died on 5 December 1918 from wounds he received during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive on 11 November. Matthews’s sparse World War I Questionnaire tells a sad story of love and loss.

Harry Anderson Matthews was born on 8 December 1894 in Richmond, Virginia, to Harry Lee Matthews (1868-1925), a general contractor, and Minnie Pohle (1870-1951). The Matthews family had at least eight children: Hudson W. Matthews (1893-1924), Henry A. Matthews (1894-1918), Irving Lee Matthews (1898-1967), Linwood C. Matthews (1901-1965), Marie Matthews (1905-1969), Herbert T. Matthews (1906-1967), Audrey L. Matthews (1906-1994), and William A. Matthews (1909-1910). When the United States entered the war in April 1917, Matthews worked for his father as a building foreman. On 19 January 1918, Matthews married Adelia Charlotte Howland (1899-1982). He was inducted into the army on 27 May 1918 and left for Europe on 6 August 1918. His daughter, Marjorie, was born thirteen days later.

This article originally appeared in slightly altered form in the Summer 2001 issue of “Virginia Cavalcade.”

Between 1928 and 1930, the federal government published the official records of the 1st Division, American Expeditionary Force (AEF). The Library of Virginia recently conserved an atlas that complements those twenty-four massive volumes. Maps are, of course, crucial in warfare, and these twenty-six base maps and forty-two overlays provide topographic documentation of portions of the American—and Virginian—involvement in World War I.

The federal government distributed the canvas-bound atlas with the 1st Division’s published records in the early 1930s. Army cartographers and engineers at Fort Humphreys, Virginia (now Fort Belvoir) and Fort DuPont, Delaware (now a state park), created the atlas using French Cartographic Service maps purchased in 1928. The army made the overlays with lithography and reproduced original maps with mimeographs. Numbers on the overlay maps correspond to coordinates on the base maps, allowing the researcher to see precise positions of enemy lines, mustard-gas concentrations, machine gun nests, and the like. The army cartographers characterized these maps and overlays as “exact reproductions of all available maps, sketches, charts, etc., showing all of the troop dispositions, operations, plans, situation reports, diagrams, [and] barrage charts…which have been found in the World War Records of the First Division.”

The maps nearly languished in obscurity in the Library’s archives storage. They came … read more »

This is the first entry in a series of blog posts spotlighting stories and records of Virginia’s involvement in World War I. United States Marine Private Clarence A. Bryce, Jr., the subject of this week’s post, died on 2 November 1918 after being hit by a German artillery shell during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

Clarence Archibald Bryce, Jr. was born on 17 August 1889 in Richmond, Virginia, to Clarence Archibald Bryce, Sr. (1849-1928), a physician, and Virginia Keene (1861-1935), an artist. Dr. Bryce was a prominent Richmond physician for over 50 years and a prolific writer on medical topics. Virginia Bryce studied art in Paris and ran an art school in Richmond. They had five children: Mildred Bryce (1886-1955), Virginia Bryce (1888-1974), Clarence Bryce, Jr. (1889-1918), Jeannette Bryce Staton (1892-1975), and Louise Bryce Pavay (1898-1985). When the United States entered the war in April 1917, Bryce was a self-employed auto mechanic in Richmond. He attempted to enlist in the Army but was rejected because of his low weight. Bryce successfully enlisted in the United States Marine Corp on 7 April 1918 at Paris Island, South Carolina.

After training at Fort Crockett, Texas and Quantico, Virginia, Bryce and his unit, Company B, 1st Training Battalion, left for France, arriving in Brest on 26 August 1918. After additional training for the front, Bryce joined 82nd Company, 6th … read more »

Editor’s note: This post was adapted from a talk given by Roger Christman, state records archivist.

A hundred years ago, on 6 April 1917, the United States officially entered World War I, declaring war on Germany almost three years after the conflict began in Europe. Virginia was a major participant in the United States’ war effort. Just over 100,000 Virginians served in World War I, with over 4,000 dying from disease, combat, and training accidents, and many more injured or disabled. Several areas in Virginia became essential centers for the war effort; these included Hampton Roads as a supply and deployment center, the naval base at Norfolk, the horse remount station in Front Royal, and the mobilization base now known as Fort Lee.

Virginia will commemorate the World War I centennial with a number of events and projects. The Virginia World War I and World War II Profiles of Honor Mobile Tourwill provide an interactive exhibit to museums, libraries, and historic sites throughout Virginia. Visitors will be invited to bring their own World War I and II-related photographs to be scanned for inclusion in the Virginia Profiles of Honor project. The Library of Virginia will catalog these materials, and some will be featured on Transcribe along with materials from our other collections.

Efforts to document Virginia’s involvement in WWI are far from new, however. In … read more »

As a non-librarian at the Library of Virginia, I am constantly grateful for both the depth of our collections and the knowledge of our archival and reference staff. My job is to help look after Virginia’s State Art Collection, which consists of artworks owned by the Commonwealth on display in public buildings in the Capitol Square area. As part of my job, I do research on state art objects in response to inquiries from the public and in order to flesh out catalog files.

The works in the State Art Collection are mostly what you would expect – portraits of public officials, statues and busts of presidents, and the occasional scenic Virginia landscape. Paintings of private individuals have also become part of the collection over the years, either through association with a notable Virginian, or as a gift to the state. In some instances, as with this portrait of a World War I era soldier, the identity of the subject and the way the piece was acquired have been forgotten, and we are left with a mystery.

As with any piece of material culture, the best place to start is the object itself. There are a few clues in the painting: the signature indicates that it was painted in 1920 by local artist John Pleasants Walker (1855-1932), and the uniform insignia shows that our … read more »

Today marks the centennial of the sinking of the Lusitania, usually acknowledged as the first step towards the United States’ entry into World War I. The Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland on 7 May 1915, causing the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew. The death toll included 128 Americans, sparking outrage throughout the nation.

One of the survivors was Richmond native Charles Hill, who was 38 at the time of the sinking. Hill, who worked for the British-American Tobacco Company, had been living in England with his family for almost fifteen years. He returned periodically to Richmond to visit his father, C. Emmett Hill. In April, Hill, his wife Eva, and their children returned to the U.S. for the sake of her health, travelling on the Lusitania. On 1 May, Hill reboarded the Lusitania in New York, bound for Liverpool with almost two thousand other passengers and crew members.

Hill was on the starboard promenade deck of the Lusitania when it was struck, and saw both the periscope of German submarine U-20 and the wake of the torpedo. After rushing below decks in an unsuccessful attempt to find several friends, Hill returned deck and made it into lifeboat number 14, which over the course of the afternoon capsized six times. Hill clung to the lifeboat with several other … read more »